Apple uses Google cloud to store data on iCloud services, the company confirms

Apple confirmed last month that here onwards it will be relying on Google cloud for storing the data for the iCloud services it provides. It has disclosed this matter by uploading a file on the website. This initiation of Apple is to compete with its rival companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

Apple previously used Amazon Web Services to store all the user files, applications, and iCloud services. The rumors were floating on air in 2016 regarding Apple’s this move, but the company never gave any confirmation.

Along with Amazon, Apple also relied on another remote data storage system i.e. Microsoft’s Azure services for storage. It is still unknown when Apple will start using Google services. Documents that user can store on Google Cloud includes photos, videos, contact numbers, email addresses, or other items that need to be broken down into small lumps before storing it in the cloud.

Each small lump of the data is encrypted first using an AES-128 encryption key and the contents of SHA-256. These encrypted keys and metadata are stored in iCloud account while file lumps are taken care by the third-party cloud services without verifying any user accounts for the next time user logs in.

Google contributes $1 billion revenue in one quarter while its competitor Amazon Web Services brought $5.11 billion revenue in the last quarter of the year. Several other third-party customers of Google include PayPal, Snap, Spotify, and Kroger.

Apple will be using Google cloud services for couple months as it is trying to expand its data centers in countries such as Denmark, the United States, and Ireland. Later, it will be using own cloud storage services to store the data.

The iOS giant has recently opened a data center in China and is on the way to move all the iCloud data of the local people residing there to the data center of China.